Graeme Revell

Inspiration is where you find it, and for composer Graeme Revell, it was in an Australian hospital for the mentally ill. Revell, working as an orderly, became mesmerized by the rhythmic textures in the vocalizations of patients, and he used the sounds in experimental recordings that would later employ insects and industrial machinery. His soundscapes have been woven into the music of his band SPK as well as video games and TV shows such as "CSI: Miami."

Inspiration is where you find it, and for composer Graeme Revell, it was in an Australian hospital for the mentally ill. Revell, working as an orderly, became mesmerized by the rhythmic textures in the vocalizations of patients, and he used the sounds in experimental recordings that would later employ insects and industrial machinery. His soundscapes have been woven into the music of his band SPK as well as video games and TV shows such as "CSI: Miami."

Despite its title, "Gossip" won't be able to count on good word of mouth, for loose lips will surely sink this silly, shallow melodrama that turns upon the havoc wreaked by rumor. It's a total waste of time and the talent of such proven film craftsmen as cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak and composer Graeme Revell, who strive mightily to create mood and suspense not provided in Gregory Poirier and Theresa Rebeck's heavily contrived script and Davis Guggenheim's flashy direction.

"Fled," which effectively teams Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin as runaway convicts, is a successful summer diversion, the kind of film you start forgetting the moment it's over but is fun while you're watching it. As a hard-action thriller it hasn't an iota of originality, but has been directed with style and energy by Kevin Hooks from a serviceable script by Preston A.

Production notes for Mark Hanlon's "Buddy Boy" describe it as "a dark and twisted exploration of faith, alienation and madness"--and is it ever! Aidan Gillen's Francis is an introverted stutterer who lives in an extravagantly decrepit inner-city apartment with his disabled stepmother, Sal (Susan Tyrrell), a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, cackling old harpy in a fright wig who's forever warning Francis of God's wrath hailing down upon him.

"The Craft" cleverly--and brutally--imagines what would happen if several unhappy girls at a fictional L.A. Catholic high school, declaring themselves witches, could actually tap into malevolent supernatural powers. The young women are naturally thrilled to even some scores, but predictably the whole thing gets out of hand in gory fashion, occasioning lots of gruesome, nightmarish special effects.

This Hidden Hills house was built in 1999 for film composer Graeme Revell and his wife, Sinan, and includes a recording facility among its long list of amenities. The New Zealand native, 49, is known for his blending of traditional ethnic music and sounds such as New Age effects, ghostly vocals and tribal percussion. He created some of these in the guesthouse-turned-studio at the Mediterranean-style home.

With "Love Crimes" (citywide), feminist filmmaker Lizzie Borden moves into the mainstream with a gritty, timely erotic thriller that is as provocative intellectually as sexually. In its consideration of edgy, often hostile contemporary relationships between men and women, it represents a natural progression from Borden's wryly perceptive documentary-like "Working Girls," set in a Manhattan bordello.

Studios routinely skip advance screenings of movies deemed risky or pointless to show critics, but "The Fog" needn't have been one of them. Yes, the fog itself looks pretty cheesy, as do the zombie-like mariners who inhabit it in their century-old quest for revenge. And the script from Cooper Layne contains your typical horror-flick lines that overstate the obvious, like: "That guy gives me the creeps," and, "Nick, ever since I came home, horrible things have been happening."

Director Brett Ratner, who cemented his success with the "Rush Hour" trilogy, has taken Anurag Basu's entertaining Bollywood extravaganza "Kites," which opened just a week ago, and reworked it as "Kites: The Remix" to make it more appealing to wider audiences. Ratner has succeeded admirably without destroying the heart and soul of the original, yet oddly, the work opened Friday without benefit of media previews. From the 130-minute original, which is actually a rather short running time for Bollywood, Ratner has cut a fast-paced 90-minute version that preserves the star-crossed lovers theme but cuts back on the soap operatics and other over-the-top moments so typical of Bollywood.

In the admirably swift opening of the psychological mystery thriller "Suicide Kings," a smart B-picture with lots of A-pluses, a shrewd veteran gangster, wonderfully well-played by Christopher Walken, is kidnapped by a bunch of preppy types and whisked off to a suburban mansion. It seems that the sister of one of the kidnappers (Henry Thomas) has herself been kidnapped and is being held for a $2-million ransom. What to do but zero in on Walken, who's sure to have access to that kind of money?